Health & Wellness

Cetaphil: Why the Popular Cleanser Isn’t Doing Your Skin Any Favors
And Alexia Brue
January 13

Cetaphil probably has the best PR of any facial soap. Beauty magazines gush over it as a no-frills $8 must-have. Dermatologists love to recommend it as a mild and non-irritating facial cleanser for two reasons: it doesn’t contain fragrance and, more tellingly, because MDs have a big Pharma love affair with the manufacturer, Galderma, the offspring of Nestlé and L’Oréal, which also makes acne drugs like Differin.

And yet there’s nothing healthy about this face-washing prescription.

Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser contains just eight ingredients: water, cetyl alcohol, propylene glycol, sodium lauryl sulfate, stearyl alcohol, methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben.

All but the water are chemically manufactured (let’s hope), and propylene glycol, sodium lauryl sulfate, and the three parabens have a seat on the dirty dozen, a list of cosmetic ingredients to avoid as potentially toxic.

One look at the label and you’ve got to go “Wait a minute! What?”says Spirit Demerson, who analyzes skin-care ingredients for Spirit Beauty Lounge, her online natural beauty store. “Cetaphil does not contain even one single beneficial ingredient and what it does contain is the equivalent of toxic sludge. Whether you think it’s keeping your skin healthy or not, it is absorbed into your bloodstream and research has proven almost all of the few ingredients in it are carcinogenic. I know it’s hard to imagine that washing your face can give you cancer but it’s worth consideration.”

The ingredients in this popular Gentle Skin Cleanser don’t support the name.

Julia March, a top NYC facialist, says that so many New Yorkers believe that Cetaphil is healthy, they tend ignore the ingredients completely. “Cetyl alcohol, an emollient used in many cosmetics, is essentially a wax,” says March. “Propylene glycol is a common humectant (meaning it brings moisture from the air to the skin), but it also enhances product and chemical penetration into the skin and blood stream. Sodium lauryl sulfate is a foaming agent, and skin and eye irritant, that disturbs the healthy lipid barrier of the skin, and parabens are a group of preservatives being phased out for potential health risks.”

Given that there’s actually nothing clean about this cleanser, it’s rather amazing that millions of women think their skin will freak out if they use anything else. “It may not irritate skin very much, but it probably won’t help it much either,” says Nicole Yih, Assistant Spa Director at the Mandarin Oriental New York. That’s because there’s nothing in Cetaphil that nurtures skin. No antioxidants that help fight free radical damage; not a dribble of omega-rich plant seed oils that fortify the skin barrier; and not a drop of skin-calming botanicals.

A cleanser that you use twice a day should be judged on what it gives your skin. Consider this your new cleanser criterion.

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  • Julie Nusbaum

    I appreciate your point, and it leads me to question my twice daily Cetaphil use. But there is one important nuance to point out- part of the reason dermatologists like to recommend Cetaphil is precisely because it doesn't contain any “nurturing” ingredients. They are in most cases prescribing/advising you other topical treatments to do that. In theory. Though probably from this point of view, those treatments aren't “nurturing” either. I am not sure.

  • Aliana

    So what facial cleanser should we be using?

  • Karinamuro

    Thank you for the information. I always thought cetaphil was the best option. Of course every dermatologist I've been recommended cetaphil. I cant believe I never checked the ingridients list. Even my 13 year old daughter has been using it for a couple of years. Urg! Can you recommend one or more facial cleanser?

  • Samanthacl21

    Origins is an all natural makeup and skin care company… although personally I have to use something with salicylic acid or my face breaks out like crazy. I would just recommend looking for ingredients in your face soap (and everything else you eat and put on your body) that you can pronounce. Also check out http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.c…/ as you can search through the products you use and they rate the ingredients and if they're cancerous.

  • Noeline

    what facial cleanser should be used?

  • RHSC

    ive been going to the skin deep ewg dot org web site.. i test products and see the horrible toxins in so many things we put on our faces and bodies. i had some skin cancer and i really think it was from these products sold in most drug stores.some sunblock even has cancer causing chemicals– now im using plain castile soap ,dr bronner, vitamin e , shea butter,  braggs organic vinegar and making my own skin care lotions -all natural for sure this time – be careful..just because it says natural on the lable  doesnt mean it it.. most of the marketing is a false promise for a healthy product. clp nyc